New York — Equity markets continued their advance on Tuesday and a gauge of world stocks notched a record for a second straight session, spurred by speculation about US tax reform and relief at French election results. Wall Street built on gains in the prior session, with the Nasdaq Composite index breaching the 6,000 mark for the first time. Recent opinion polls have centrist Emmanuel Macron, who won the first round of the French presidential election, with a comfortable lead over far-right, anti-EU candidate Marine Le Pen in a May 7 run-off vote. Safe-haven assets such as gold and the Japanese yen retreated, while the yield gap between French and German short-term government bonds, a closely watched measure of political risk in the Eurozone, hit its lowest in almost three months.. Bets on clarity regarding the tax code helped boost US stocks, according to Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh. "(Treasury Secretary Steven) Mnuchin has ...
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